


All I Have to Do

by Lucky107



Series: The Wanderer [12]
Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 06:11:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7302742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky107/pseuds/Lucky107
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With his own hand outstretched parallel to hers, he doesn't even have to look to locate the 'play' button in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I Have to Do

**Author's Note:**

> All I Have to Do Is Dream - The Everly Brothers - 1958

It's dark in the Jefferson Memorial sub-basement and the only light in their makeshift sleeping quarters is cast from Cassidy Bullion's Pip-Boy screen, dim and green and comfortably familiar.  There, she lies with her chin resting on Butch DeLoria's chest, her eyes closed and her left arm outstretched to hang off the bedside.  
  
Butch can't tell if she's finally fallen asleep or not until she whispers softly, "Again."  
  
With his own hand outstretched parallel to hers, he doesn't even have to look to locate the 'play' button in the dark.  
  
_... That batch of tests was inconclusive, but Madison and I are convinced it's a problem with the secondary filtration system.  We're going to re-calibrate the equipment and try again tomorrow, so that—James, please.  I'm trying to work.  Now's not the time..._  
  
A woman's voice comes through the speaker and Cassidy shifts so that her head rests entirely against her companion.  They've been lying here for hours now, in her father's old workspace, listening to the same holotape again and again because Butch thought it might help Cassidy make peace with her circumstances.  
  
Whenever he feels overwhelmed, he recalls the times as a child when his mother would sit down on his bedside and run her fingers through his hair.  He can't remember the exact words she would whisper, but she was gentle and kind when she was sober enough to realise how much she could hurt him.  And though such times were few and far between, they're the times he remembers the fondest when he thinks about his mother.  
  
But Cassidy never had a mother.  
  
She smiles a small little smile as she listens to the voice of a stranger because the black and white photograph in her back pocket and this holotape recording are the closest she's ever been to her mother... and there are so many unspoken regrets surrounding her father's untimely death—  
  
Death.  
  
Death is such a cruel word, cold and self-serving.  James Bullion was the complete opposite; he made a sacrifice - a sacrifice to save not only his child, but an entire nation - without hesitation, so to call what happened that day 'death' is belittling the legacy of a hero.  
  
Shifting her position once more, Cassidy snakes her arm around Butch's shoulders and sighs audibly.  He can't tell if she's merely listening to the rhythmic sound of his beating heart or if she's absorbing the natural lapse back into silence.  
  
Butch is awaiting that conditioned command when, instead, she whispers, "Thank you."


End file.
